


If Only You Knew

by AlterEgon



Category: A Knight's Tale (2001)
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 12:36:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterEgon/pseuds/AlterEgon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Geoffrey Chaucer reminisces on his relationship to William... or the lack thereof</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Only You Knew

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trojie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/gifts).



If only you knew…

I don't think you even guess.

If you do, you're hiding it well. If you don't, I will certainly not educate you. Too much do I fear that that particular revelation would take away even that which I do have: your friendship.

I loved you that first day we met, when, seeing me trudge down the road naked, your first reaction was not to laugh, not to mock, not to take offence at my less-than-decent appearance. Even then, I would have drawn up your patents of nobility had you just asked me. No threats or promises would have been needed. Or, well, I did need some clothes, and my feet were awfully sore at that point, and you didn't ask.

You showed me kindness again, more than I deserved, when you rescued me from Peter the Pardoner at Rouen. You paid back my gambling debt from your winnings, you stopped the certainly much-deserved thrashing your man Wat was trying to administer. Even though his punches don't come close to the worst I can imagine or that I received before, I do appreciate the thought.

It was at Rouen, too, where I first realized that I was starting to think of you with more than the gratitude I was sure obliged to feel towards my rescuer.

And at Rouen where I learned that whatever feelings I may harbor for you, I would do best to keep my own counsel about them. A man who accidentally rides his horse well into a church because he's so dazzled by a woman's beauty that he never once looks at where he is going would not be likely to appreciate the love of one as I.

So I kept my thoughts to myself and stayed as close to you as I could. As your faithful herald, I could stick by your side wherever you went with none the wiser. That, as well as the times we sat together to flesh out Sir Ulrich some more, to make sure we had our facts straight and consistent so as not to give you away, gave me some opportunity to pretend that things were different. The two of us did most of the talking during those nights, with your two friends throwing in unqualified remarks now and then. At times, I wondered if Wat's hostility towards me came in part from jealousy. I wondered if he had noticed something, feared that I might take the place in your life that he had been unable to. Eventually I decided that he quite simply did not like me and continued on in my daydreams. I have always been a dreamer. Pretending is what I do best.

Pretending was also what helped me give you advice on how to speak with Jocelyn without biting my tongue. I would not have deliberately given you bad advice on that, knowing that would be a sure way to lose your company if you ever found out. But I could always stand there, hold you close to whisper in your ear, and speak words to you that I wished I could have actually addressed to you.

In retrospect I wonder if I could have put an end to it still in those early days, had I kept more of a distance. Instead, however, I sought out those moments where I could be closest to you, put my hands on you in ways that no one would think too far amiss, even though it is not usually a herald's task to armor his liege. Going over your armor and your horse's tack before you went into the ring or rode into the lists served a double purpose. In addition to craving that physical contact, however short, however fleeting it may have been, I needed to know that you were safe. It wasn't that I didn't trust your men to do your armor up properly. It was simply that I trusted myself more – especially after that first swordfight, when your boys managed to get that spaulder stuck, leaving you unable to properly block your opponent's strikes. You would have lost that match if I hadn't managed to quickly fix the problem before it was too late.

And still, I could not keep you safe from everything out there. You can never understand what it felt like to see Adhemar's lance strike at your head, those few seconds of not knowing how you'd come out of that. Afterwards, as I saw that you were as well as could be expected given the circumstances, there came relief so strong it was nearly palpable. At the same time, I know that if I went to you at that moment I would have given it all away. Too fresh was that sudden jolt of fear of losing you without ever having really had you. I made sure to keep a barrier and several people between us until I knew that I could keep my head around you again.

Later, I was as relieved to hear that Adhemar had been called back to war as you were angry at the news. You weren't ready then to face him in the lists again. You needed all the extra practice you could get. Those were the weeks, too, in which you were not talking to Jocelyn or rather: Jocelyn was not talking to you. As far as I'm concerned, those weeks could have lasted forever. But, alas, they did not.

I may be the writer among us, but you have a way with words even without my help. So do your men, albeit rarely. I could not have written the letter you sent to Jocelyn any better, once the three of you got going properly. Oh, how I would have loved that letter, had I been its recipient. But I wasn't, and somehow I nearly hoped she would manage to find some fault in it. Of course she didn't. You really should have sent me instead of Wat that day. I sure would have given you her token of love in a more dedicated manner. It is hard to watch you be that happy and mourn the return of the woman you love into our lives at the same time.

Then came Jocelyn's splendid dare of you losing the tournament that nearly lost us all of our money. I must have felt every one of those blows you took for her as if they had hit my own flesh, and not because of our bet. Luckily, the others were berating you enough to spare me the effort of jumping in as well. It would have been hard to keep up a somewhat reasonable face, not betraying a kind of concern entirely out of place between herald and liege. It may have been the first and only time that you were actually glad to have my hands on you – maybe not when we were putting your shoulder back in its socket, but after, as I was trying to massage some of the ache from your sore muscles.

That night as I was collecting our winnings from the bet, I watched Jocelyn sneak into your tent. We had tents at that time. And beds. With cushions and curtains around them. With everything you had won, from ransoms for horses and armor to  your tournament champion's trophies that we invariably sold, we were outfit better than any of you had ever been before. That night saw me drunk senseless for the first time since I'd been in your company.

Our return to London brought me some solace initially, in the return to my wife. She was overjoyed to have me back and let me forget for a few nights what had been on my mind for the last months. It just got that much harder after you barged in on us that one night.

It just about killed me to bring you that message on Adhemar having found you out. I told you I wished you'd run, even knowing that you never would. I would have gone down on my knees then and there, had I thought that I had the slightest chance of convincing you to get out of London and save yourself. Instead I stood by your side like the others as you walked proudly to face your arrest.

Today, the four of us pushed through the crowd come to see you in the stocks just as they were starting to get violent. We did what each of us does best – Roland and Kate guarding you, Wat screaming his silly threats at the crowd and me trying to do what any good writer would, capturing the attention of my audience and guiding them to the reaction I wanted out of them. I cannot start to describe the relief that flooded me the moment I had them laugh with me, rather than at me. The speech I delivered to the crowd was as close as I can ever get to making you a public declaration of my love. I am not sure that you even listened. Today, I stole the one chance at giving you a lover's touch, though once again disguised as one of mere comfort. I don't think you even noticed.

Against all odds, they listened. Against even higher odds, your rescue came in the form of one so far above everyone else to be beyond contestation, as he put it. At that moment, I would have gladly done anything for Prince Edward, had he asked.

Hope. Kate said once that love should end with hope. Maybe it should, but it doesn't always. There's no hope left for my love, William. You're about to tilt against Adhemar now, with a hole in your shoulder left by his tipped lance, hardly able to keep up your own. The brief respite between passes is nearly over. I will buy you what time I can to prepare, and pray as I never have before that you will win this tilt. I'll pray that you will survive it, armorless as you are now. For the last time, I will introduce you to the crowd. For the first time, I will do so using your true name.

Then you will ride, and so God wills you will put Adhemar in his place. Afterwards, you will go on to marry Jocelyn, and I will steal out of your lives. I do not think that I could bear watching you happy with her day after day, always a watcher on the sidelines, never able to have what I so wish. I will take Philippa, leave and find other ways to keep my mind occupied and put you out of my thoughts. It is better that way.

#

  
  
Illustration by Rebekah


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